


Waterloo

by QuantumNebula



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Blood, Body Horror, Gen, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), Teeth, The True Horror Is 1800's medical practices, actually got an honourable mention!, so I figure it's worth posting, this was technically my entry for Rusty Fears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:21:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24262006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuantumNebula/pseuds/QuantumNebula
Summary: Statement of Edward Vandallum, regarding a strange set of teeth
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	Waterloo

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Wrote this for the Rusty Fears competition, and had no idea was to do with it so I slapped some Jon on either end and now its a statement fic. Let me know if I missed any trigger warnings. Working title was "I Don't Trust Teeth And Neither Should You" so if teeth are an issue for you, run maybe?

Statement of Edward Vandallum, regarding the purchase of a strange pair of dentures. 19th century, precise dates unknown. Original statement, taken via a letter sent to an unknown recipient. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins.

Apologies in advance. It has been a considerable time since I have written to a peer, so my propriety may be off. Misfortunes and that. I pray you will forgive me.

How is your family? I hope this letter finds you well. May you not want for anything of substance. May you have the means to reach for flights of fancy beyond your grasp.

Though I implore you, may your vice not be sweet as mine was. You know I have always had a certain penchant for the sugary items in life. Personally, I had a splendid time, but it has not done well for my teeth. A few years past, I elected to buy some fresh ones. My first set was on the cheaper side, which was quite a poor decision on my part. They rotted away within a few scant years. I decided to spend a little more wisely the second time around.

The barber surgeon lined up the various paupers, but I didn’t particularly want to choose. I had no desire to look in the beady eyes attached to my teeth. Full of a desire to be chosen for the pliers, sickening fear overrun by a lust for women or opium. Additionally, most didn’t meet my… standards. As you know, I have no problem with the poor, but those who go to sell their teeth don’t tend to be the healthiest. Either chasing their vice or gaunt with hunger and infection.

Seeing my reluctance, the barber surgeon presented a second option. He led me to the back, and showed me a rather fetching set, gleaming white. They almost glowed in the dim workshop, a clever trick of cascading light. Each tooth was riveted solidly into shiny golden plates. Winding piano wire held them close, in two tight rows, and they grinned up at me as if to welcome me to them. The barber, who’s name regretfully escapes me, said that if I was willing to pay for it, the teeth could be mine. The teeth, he said, eyes glinting in excitement, were pulled from the mouths at Waterloo.

I of course took the offer immediately, the price no longer phasing me. A chance for a set of Waterloo teeth? Why there was no question of the quality. Young, healthy men who hadn’t died of any malady or malnutrition. Serving our country, certainly much worthier than the waifs offerings in the parlor. Why, it was simply the best option. Naturally I’d heard of these sets, but given that the Battle of Waterloo had been many years ago I had never expected to have my own, regardless of the sheer number harvested from the fields. A complete set at that, with the 32 teeth appearing to match the natural look, no molars in the front or canines in the wrong positions.

Even better, the teeth were not the of time they came from. They appeared to be in the style pioneered by Claudius Ash. His method had not been presented till 1820, a full 5 years after the battle. And unworn at that. Ideal in every fashion.

I took them and found myself very happy with my purchase indeed.

This joy did not last. I suspect you already have some suspicion, due to my lengthy description of a mundane purchase. Mundane was how the strange started as well, at least to my senses.

Occasionally I would feel a brush, a poke, lightly prodding the interior of my mouth. I assumed that something was merely out of place. My last set had been worse. As nearly perfect as they were, no one else’s teeth will sit quite right in another.

Soon, it began to feel almost… deliberate. A stroke, that then increased until I could feel multitudes of tubes touching and prodding and stroking. The panic rose with every touch, every example of this strange incidence. Had I developed some parasite, an infection? Some battlefield horror, passed between the cramped soldiers and unknown to the public at large?

Infection remains one of the greatest quarries of man, that simply had to be the answer. That squirming, brushing of my tongue and caressing of my gums. But every time- and I mean every time- I opened my mouth… nothing. There was nothing there. How it taunted me, drove me mad with the feeling, if I wasn’t mad already. What infection hid from man?

It wasn’t consistent either. Sometimes I would go days without feeling the writhing. I couldn’t decide if this made me feel more or less sane… if I even know what sanity is anymore.

Who could I tell? The instant I opened my mouth, they were gone. I must beg you to believe me. I trust no one else. Though I would not blame your disbelief.

However, life continued, as it does. I washed my mouth at every opportunity, desperate to flush out the unseen worms, wriggling and squiggling in their dance.

When I was alone, I kept my mouth open as long as my jaw could stand it, for the pale relief it provided. I looked a bit daft, but I considered it a small price to pay. At least until I began to feel it even when my mouth was gaped open. No matter how long I stared into my mirror, eyes bloodshot and haunted, I still could not see them. But by god could I feel them.

I wish I could say it got better.

It was a crisp autumn morning, for the others upon my grounds. A lovely day for them, when my soul shattered once again. Personally, I found it unpleasant. All cold was biting by that point, as my figure thinned and paled. It's rather hard to eat when all you can feel is the worms moving in your mouth. Forgive me for bringing the notion up, but I discovered that the process was even worse coming back up. Making my excuses seemed much the better option.

Regardless, I spent most days shivering to my bones. Except for when the blood rushed frantically under my skin, screaming through my veins as it tried to escape my body. My blood doesn’t particularly want to stay in my body these days.

But that’s getting a tad ahead of myself. And I’m rambling about the weather, of all things.

The true significance of this day occurred during my stroll through the gardens. Something… changed. Well, that’s not quite right. The wiggling began again, though that was unfortunately nothing new. My perception however, snapped into place, shifting the world imperceptibly and off its axis all at once.

It wasn’t just the various diameters of tubes stroking my palette. There were indeed some longer, thicker tubes, but the smaller cylinders were merely an extension of these. Five per tube.

They were hands.

Suddenly, pain erupted, nails growing then scratching as my mouth filled with blood, as if in response to my new knowledge. I broke down, tearing at the teeth in my mouth, desperately trying to rip them out. Somehow, through my horror, the most benign thought appeared. Why had I not just taken them out the first time they reached out to touch me? They were dentures, easily plucked out and thrown into the nearest sea. It was like the idea had simply never occurred before this moment.

And now it was far too late.

The piano wire tightened, burrowing into my mouth, the roof and the gums and all the soft parts I know no name for. Digging until the shiny gold, now a dull copper, could barely be seen.

I wept, blood dripping from my mouth. I knew down to my bones that I was past the point of return, of easy removal. It took me a good deal longer for acceptance to truly set in.

I tried everything in the weeks that followed. Pliers shatter, hammers injure only the surrounding tissue. The teeth just grow shinier and whiter with each attempt, as if being bathed in my blood waters them as well as a flower in the rain. But I doubt the flowers taunt the sky as the teeth taunt me.

Despite all this, I have not yet reached the worst part. You see, I had not yet realized that the teeth were partially innocent in this horrific endeavour. That they ached for a release neither of us can gain.

It always happens at night, which I suppose is something of a blessing. Though I don’t spend much time around polite society these days. Still, I don’t know what I would do if my problem was observed by neural parties. I also feared that no neutral parties would see anything at all.

The first night, the pain pulled me from my fitful sleep. Instead of dozens of hands ravaging my mouth, I could only feel one pair. Pushing and pulling to a sickening pop. The hands pulled at my lips, squirming through until a tooth hit the ground with a thud, far heavier than then the sound it should have been capable of. I stumbled back, collapsing against the sturdy wood of the bed frame. I couldn’t have told you when I’d gotten out of my bed. I suppose I must have been rushing to the mirror, as little good as it was.

The tooth rolled, writhing and bulging as it expanded. Grotesque boils formed and popped and grew until the figure nearly matched myself in size.

I would have called it man-like, but only the vaguest of features spanned the stark ivory. A suggestion of a face, blown out and abstract. Its limbs were twisted, and though the rest was frightening for what it was, this particular feature found its horror in the force applied to it.

A knee bent the wrong way, spine wrenched out of alignment, arms forced to painful angles. Wrapped around and around in dull gold piano wire. It dragged forward, impossibly. Moving without any source.

I have not made much mention of myself on this night. Frankly, there isn’t much to say. I was afraid. I could spend days describing it, but none of the words we have available quite fit. Here though, I was able to feel something else. It took longer than it should have to identify, due to the overwhelm of other feelings. It was a pronounced sense of pity. As the abomination before me crawled, it held its arms out, as if begging for release. It seemed to be in pain, however it experienced that. How could it not be in agony, utterly tangled in the biting piano wire. I could offer no comfort, though my gums panged in sympathy.

I rather wished to be set free as well.

How I sobbed, begging in turn for forgiveness and release, unable to let it out of its bonds.

This proceeded until the soundless room went silent and the eldritch figure froze. A deafening crack rang through the air, and what I would later identify as a bullet hole appeared in the mass. It appeared in what was probably a chest. That suggestion of a mouth shifted as if opening, but it was solid and could not scream.

I felt my own mouth open, of its own accord. And I promise, I had not just lost whatever grip I had left on my voice. That wire tightened, prying my jaw apart. A scream called out, but it was not my voice. Pain lanced through my chest, and I managed to see the blood spurting for a fraction of a second, before the blessed black took me away.

The wound did not exist when I awoke, and this was far from the last time. I may have even been considered lucky that first night- not all my soldiers died a quick death, their teeth with them. The bloodletting was much slower. Who could have imagined the variety of wounds they experienced. How I managed to die from gangrene in both several days and a single night, I suspect I will never know.

Of course, this wasn’t enough, as night after night passed in similar fashion. They began to come out in two’s and three’s, quadruplets and quintuplets. They were pulled back and forth, marionettes upon piano wire and rivets. The teeth danced to the screams, rolling and writhing in a rhythm alien to my mind. The teeth in my own mouth would quiver, a macabre applause to the splendor before me. Too bad neither the performers nor the audience wished to be there.

I could sense that it was building, a crescendo of more and more teeth, complexity increasing and tempo accelerating imperceptibly every evening. Yet it did grow.

I only understood when we reached the 18th of June. The first day of the famed Battle of Waterloo. That night, all of my teeth danced to the screams, thirty-two distinct voices streaming from my throat, cut off one by one as each succumbed.

At least I was granted nearly three weeks of peace after that.Just long enough to think I had finally been released.

A selfish, centric thought at best. My soldiers wished to be set free as well, and I firmly and forever believe that they were in far greater distress than I.

My regards. I shall see you this summer, granted that I survive that long, and you still wish to meet me after this letter arrives. I will take no more of your time.

Yours as long as I am able,

Edward Vandallum

Statement ends. Well. Clearly there isn’t much to say in regards to a statement like… this. There is little to be done about most of our historical statements, and this one hasn’t even bothered to give us a precise location. Or the year it took place.

Or the person it was being sent to. [Audible sigh]

I rather hope this Edward Vandallum isn’t another one of our, ah, _esteemed_ _founder’s_ paramours.

Honestly, I’m surprised he even had time to- I’ve gone off topic. Quite unprofessional.

The historical details check out, needless to say the Battle of Waterloo is quite well documented. Claudius Ash is less generally known, except among dentists and the like. However, in contrast to what Mr. Vandallum described, his style of dentures actually involved using porcelain instead of human or animal teeth. I’d imagine that the “style” referred to was his habit of using gold for the plates and swivels.

Past that, not much to be said. I don’t think I need to go into the general impossibility of your teeth coming alive. It’s likely that Mr. Vandallum was suffering from some type of delusion. Given the time period, it may even be drug related. Opium was quite popular at the time, and hallucinations are a documented side effect, though a rather underreported one.

Therefore, I don’t put much stock in the ramblings of a Victorian recluse. I’d mark it as discredited, and file it in the historical section, if not for something Tim dug up. A local museum had recently taken interest in the area where Mr. Vanadullum is suspected to have resided. He did come from a rather prominent lineage, that ended with him.

One of files on the matter mentions researcher Scott Manson digging up a pair of dentures. The entry is notated with “human”, “gold”, and “shockingly well preserved.” Unfortunately, further follow up remains impossible, as Manson disappeared soon after. Without him, this is as far as I can justify going in pursuit of such an old case.

In regards to Manson, even his last sighting remains controversal. Reports mention a passing dog walker, who provided a moderately accurate description. However, this sighting was initially discounted, as the witness claimed that the man in question had no visible teeth.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This is my first horror piece so I'd love some feedback on what worked, or what didn't!


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